First rule of tape recording: don’t do it.

Second rule: it’s super damn fun so do it (and spend a lot of money)

I am really into tape recording and budget audiophile listening. Mostly all reel to reel, cassette is pretty crap tbh. I have 6 machines now. Something is so fun about the physicality of audio on tape that cannot exist anywhere else at that point unless you manually copy it.

Keep in mind this is for tape machines we can actually afford. Not 10,000 dollar Studers.

I always recommend starting with a used machine that’s been taken care of and fix it as you go. If you start with a broken one you may never get to have fun with it if you can’t fix it.

Kept note I mostly stick with 1/4" width tale machines as they are the most prevalent and affordable. Tape also a lot cheaper than 1/2 or especially 1" (studio quality, $400 per reel).

Brands to look for in my favorite order:

Otari Revox Akai TEAC/Tascam Sony (some bad, some good) Pioneer

learn the formats There are many different machine formats. The most common is 1/4" quarter track meaning 2 tracks, backwards and forward. Higher spec machines can do true 4 track forward only, or half track forward only (best quality). Pre recorded tapes need to be played on the machine fornat they are made for. Any 1/4" blank tape works on any machine.

Stay away from: Single motor units Units that have head wear (heads are not being made now. They can be refinished however if wear isn’t too high) Units that the owner knows nothing about Most Dokorder Most fostex Some sony

Look for: Knowledgeable owner Clean heads 3 motor Units Units with small defects that are probably user error (I see a lot of “wont play but will rewind” which is usually the tape being threaded improperly and not tripping the auto stop switch. )

Find a knowledgeable helper. That can be me if anyone ever wants to reach out.

Tape: i would not recommend buying used. You never know how it was stored.

Capture is a good new cheap brand of tape.
Don’t use ATR tape until you’re experienced and have a semi pro machine.

You’ll definitely want a mixer with your tape machine. Any 12 channel or so mixer is fine but I prefer Allen Heath for quality and price. The GL series is excellent.

I’m mostly referring here to recording and playing your own tapes. For listening to prerecorded tapes, I’ll say it’s very small market and you can only get new recordings for the most part on half track 15 inch per second tapes.

Wonderful read! Why was early computing so fun…I wasn’t even around for it so it’s not nostalgia. I think it was just better.

Question on this, how would you expect the millions of people that heat/cool their homes to get by? Or are you advocating for a return to caves ? Unless you’re saying shut those down to build nuclear/solar/wind, which also takes a lot of dirty manufacturing to build. It’s kind of a no-win with this many humans.

That’s awesome ! My dad had a Renault back in the 70s air cooled…which is super weird for living in middle of nowhere. He overheated it eventually haha

Well I’ll say cassette quality can never really be good becaise of the slow speed and narrow width. . But 1/4" tape is about the best analog quality you can get (feasibly cost wise) if you go 15 IPS and half track (1 way play, no flipping).

If you want good sound for cassettes you can’t beat a Nakamichi deck, best there are.

Oh sorry, I meant more reel tape not really casettes, but I love the otari mx5050, and the teac 2340sx. Good machines and 1/4" tape is still affordable. PM me if you’d like more tape info, I love to share.

I was very lucky in that I can repair most cars. It’s a lot harder now. Before I had a real job, all my vehicles cost less than 3k. If you learn what to look for and to stay safe (brakes, tires) you shouldn’t really be in danger with a used car. Now in an accident, some ass in a 30 foot tall dodge truck will kill you, but that’s kind of unavoidable even if you’re on the sidewalk

Im obsessed with tape storage, but for audio. Nothing more real than audio on tape! Luckily it’s catching on again. Music is so disposable now, I hope we can keep physical formats alive and keep corporations away from it (digital offers them unlimited control over us).

Stop buying new cars until they remove this bullshit. We can go 40 years with existing cars without buying a single new one.